Orwell Diaries Blog

From the 9th of August the Orwell Prize organisation will be blogging George Orwell’s diaries, starting from 9th August, 1938. Here’s the initial announcement. As chance would have it on the 10th of August I’ll be going to spend some time on Jura, where Orwell wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four. Here’s a snippet from Orwell’s domestic diary from 10th August, 1948. I don’t expect 2008 to be much different, except perhaps the strawberries:

10.8.48 Fine, not very warm. Wind tends to be northerly. Mainland looked closer than I have ever seen it. B. & his friends put the hay in the back field into ricks. Took the runners out of the strawberries, ie. the worst ones.